Fundamentals of the Economy

[Bill Rotella]

This is being shown in Canada and England...............U.S. National Deficit in the Trillions, the State of Florida...........$2.5 Billion Dollar Deficit. 11 States will not be able to sustain unemployment benefits within 6 months. $200 billion earmarked to help Americans to get a credit card so that they too can go in debt.

The Question is how long can we sustain at this fast pace?


Video is only 30 minutes..........be informed or put your head in the sand.

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=O_TjBNjc9Bo

[OFG-1]

This is being shown in Canada and England...............U.S. National Deficit in the Trillions, the State of Florida...........$2.5 Billion Dollar Deficit. 11 States will not be able to sustain unemployment benefits within 6 months. $200 billion earmarked to help Americans to get a credit card so that they too can go in debt.

The Question is how long can we sustain at this fast pace?


Video is only 30 minutes..........be informed or put your head in the sand.

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=O_TjBNjc9Bo


Bill, as much as I have enjoyed these little gems that you have posted, could you please get to some point.

Are you trying to tell us that we cant spend more than we make? Duh.
Are you telling us that congress is out of touch? duh.
Are you telling us that our economy is in the crapper and will probably not recover before all the boomers hit medicare/social security age? Duh.
What great insight are we to get from this?

You have an electorate that gives congress a 24% approval rating in October, but retains 87% of the incumbents in November. If as a whole, we are so stupid as to continue to do this, we deserve it. All of it. Face it, our kids and/or grand kids will not have the same America that we have had. And WE are the ones that are so dumb as to keep electing the same various sacks of tweed that continue this idiocy.

It was an mildly interesting video Bill. But even a stupid old fat guy knows that when the debt service exceeds the income, you, me, the government, anyone, is bankrupt. Face it, taxes and fees, every governments source of revenue, are going up. The only real choice is when and how much, and the sooner the less of an increase you will have. And don't talk about cutting spending, that has never happened in any meaningful way.

I foresee the various governments selling off assets. Maybe, I will have enough money to buy Wakulla springs in the big going out of government sale.

[wingman]

While i am not going to watch the video given the source, it will just piss me off...i would like to point out that what is true for a part is not necessarily true for the whole and that to assume so is a logical error termed fallacy of composition. While an individual or a state can not run a deficit, the federal government can and does. In essence, the national debt is something that we owe ourselves and interest payments are revenue flows...the only problem is the extent to which it is held by foreigners. Bill, are you not an accountant and do you not understand financial statements? On a balance sheet is not debt on one side and assets on the other? So what do you think we could get with a small federal fire sale...hmm...let's sell alaska back to the russians, that might produce a healthy return on investment given the paltry sum paid to acquire it. What might the Saudis pay for the grand canyon?

The economy goes through recessions regularly...check out the National Bureau of Economic Research (http://www.nber.org/) and educate yourself. While the official data on this one will not be available till after the fact it will be similar to many that have been endured in the past. The interesting aspect about this one is that monetary policy has lost some potency in mitigating the downturn. What we will get is a classic Keynesian fiscal policy fix...the new administration is right on target with a rebuild the infrastructure federal spending plan and fortunately the typical problems with the application of fiscal policy in the executive branch have been removed given the recent election results.

What the Bush administration did with the federal budget surplus was a bit over the top and now we are running large deficits due to fiscal mismanagement (among other things). The new administration will be forced to run deficits as well in the short run but as the economy recovers and revenues expand the deficit will shrink. The federal government should (note my slip into normative economics here) not be forced to balance each budget;rather, they should balance the budget over the business cycle and deficit spend during recessions and run surplusses during expansions.

The sky is not falling sir.....

[Tegg]

the new administration is right on target with a rebuild the infrastructure federal spending plan and fortunately the typical problems with the application of fiscal policy in the executive branch have been removed given the recent election results.



Just a quick question...

With the deficit so high, and people's incomes dwindling (as a whole), where is the government going to get this "federal spending plan" money?

There are only a few ways for a government to gain more cash...

Tax the people.

Print more money.

Both of which are not good ideas in a recession...

[JE]

*What bothers me more is that someone told me yesteday that our newly elected president forged his US citizenship papers claiming to be a native born American, & proposedly was originally born in Kenya-? I really don't know, but I do know that in order to be eligable for the oval office you have to be a 'natural' born citizen of our country-! True or not-? :smt102

Please enlighten us-!

je

[Bill Rotella]

*What bothers me more is that someone told me yesteday that our newly elected president forged his US citizenship papers claiming to be a native born American, & proposedly was originally born in Kenya-? I really don't know, but I do know that in order to be eligable for the oval office you have to be a 'natural' born citizen of our country-! True or not-? :smt102

Please enlighten us-!

je


Check out the following site to help answer your question:

www.homelandsecurityus.com

[wingman]

Just a quick question...

With the deficit so high, and people's incomes dwindling (as a whole), where is the government going to get this "federal spending plan" money?

There are only a few ways for a government to gain more cash...

Tax the people.

Print more money.

Both of which are not good ideas in a recession...

They borrow it...by the way, the money supply is managed not by printing money but rather by influencing reserves in the banking system.

[JE]

Check out the following site to help answer your question:

www.homelandsecurityus.com (http://www.homelandsecurityus.com)

Bill,

This scares the hell out of me-! Now what ? Does the DOJ & congress step in & force him out-?

J.

[wingman]

*What bothers me more is that someone told me yesteday that our newly elected president forged his US citizenship papers claiming to be a native born American, & proposedly was originally born in Kenya-? I really don't know, but I do know that in order to be eligable for the oval office you have to be a 'natural' born citizen of our country-! True or not-? :smt102

Please enlighten us-!

je

Suggest you start with article 2 of the constitution then move on to the definition of natural born...it appears that if you were a caesarean birth then you can't be president.

[wingman]

Bill,

This scares the hell out of me-! Now what ? Does the DOJ & congress step in & force him out-?

J.


Not to worry, snopes to the rescue <lol>

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthcertificate.asp

also, i heard that Obama has pledged not to pardon Bush.

[Bill Rotella]

Just a quick question...

With the deficit so high, and people's incomes dwindling (as a whole), where is the government going to get this "federal spending plan" money?

There are only a few ways for a government to gain more cash...

Tax the people.

Print more money.

Both of which are not good ideas in a recession...


That is easy...................tax the people, and where is the bail out money coming from?..............from selling treasury bills to "CHINA and the MIDDLE EAST" or anybody who is willing to pay.